Death to the Birds

If I hadn’t gotten into a stupid argument with my sister–okay, all my arguments with my sister are stupid–and if it hadn’t been a full moon that night, I never would have solved a mystery that had bedeviled me from my teenage years on.

“When the gas gauge says ’empty,’ she lectured with her usual faux frustration, it means you shouldn’t drive more than another five miles on the tank.”

“Nonsense,” I rejoined. “I can go at least 50 miles on this baby.”

An hour later, nearing midnight, I sputtered to a stop on a desolate back road on the edge of our local forest/nature preserve/make-out spot/derelict haven. I had no gas tank, no cell phone, and no hope of getting out of there before dawn. I was angry at my car, my sister, myself, and at the incessant chirping of what seemed like dozens of birds in the woods.

Triaging my options, I decided to do something about the latter.

Hiking into the woods wasn’t as difficult as I’d thought, especially with moonlight helping me to avoid most of the low-hanging branches. Fifteen minutes and about 70 thorny scratches on my face and body later, I entered a clearing and saw it–or rather, them: a dozen birds standing in a crude rectangle, most of them bobbing their heads, and one or two of them doing whatever birds do when they communicate with each other.

Now let me say right here that I know next to nothing about birds. I know they fly, I know they make nests, and I know that some of them taste pretty good when they’re broiled and seasoned with garlic and sage. But, while I can probably distinguish between a robin and a condor, I doubt if I can distinguish between a robin and a wren, or a crow, or much of any other bird of approximately the same size.

Luckily, this dearth of knowledge is not critical to what I’m about to reveal.

Creeping up to the ceremony–for that’s what it resembled–as quietly as I could, I noticed that in the middle of the rectangle was another bird, laid out (I won’t say “spread-eagled”), and presumably dead. It appeared that each bird was taking a turn paying its obsequial respects to the recently departed. At times the other birds would respond with a bit of a cackle, as if the speaking bird said something funny. At other times the birds would cease bobbing and hang their heads, as if the speaking bird said something incredibly sad.

I don’t know how long they’d been performing this ritual, but it had to have been at least half an hour, when suddenly they stopped. While they paused, I also paused to reflect on how similar our species really were, how alike when it came to treating our friends, relatives, and loved ones with solemn respect as they passed on. I was brought up with a sudden, warm feeling of oneness.

And then one of the birds emitted a loud hoot, and all of them pounced on the dead one, tearing it to shreds and eating it. In two minutes, the deed was done, and they flew away. Only scraps remained, and they were soon blown into the woods.

That’s when I solved the mystery.

For most of my life I have wondered where all the dead birds were. Sure, you see one or two by the side of a highway, but those were probably vehicular victims. What about all the thousands of birds that die constantly of old age, or sickness, or, I don’t know, accidents repairing their nests? Where are all the bodies? Shouldn’t they be dropping out of the sky with some frequency? Shouldn’t our land be overrun with avian corpses?

Now it all made sense. Birds take care of their own–efficiently and, for all I know, nutritiously. I nodded, too, in that quiet clearing in the woods–not out of respect for the oneness of all living things, but out of the realization that maybe, just maybe, birds have a lot to teach us.